Emerald Ambush
by Obsidian Blade
Summary: A routine hunting trip turns disastrous when a young Houndour and his father stumble on the wrong sort of human. One-shot.


**Ambush**

by Obsidian Blade

I bounded along through the grass, the ground springy and warm from the heat of the fading sunlight as my heavy paws thudded against it. Above me the sky was as orange as my broad muzzle, fading to charcoal black pocked with tiny pinpoints of light my father called 'stars'. Aside from the constant neon glow that hovered above the large human territory nearby the light was fading fast. My stubby black tail wagged happily: hunting time.

My father - an old, tough-looking Houndoom with a long, angular snout and an impressive war-tear ripped into the triangular tip of his tail - stalked along beside me on long, powerful legs. I had to trot just to keep up; my short legs weren't really built for speed. I was very close to my father, the hound who had taught me all I knew, and it was a treat for me to go hunting with him alone rather than with the multitude of my siblings. My smug joy must have made me careless, though, because I didn't notice the disturbance up ahead until I walked smack-dab into my father's outstretched paw. I looked up at him curiously but quickly spun my head around when I found his sharp hunter's gaze aimed elsewhere than at me.

As father lowered his paw I slunk forward a bit on splayed black pads, peering through the long grass. It was easy to find them, noisy and clumsy as they were, and I wondered vaguely how I had possibly missed them. Standing on two legs, with their forepaws handing at their sides, the creatures had strange dark fur that seemed very matted covering most of their bodies, pale pink flesh left bare around the neck and front paws. Each had an additional mop of longer fur on their heads and didn't appear to have much in the way of muzzles at all.

"Wh-what are…" I started in a puzzled tone, only to be cut off by my sire's response.  
  
"Humans." He growled darkly, the thick fur around his ruff rising menacingly.  
  
My heart leapt in my chest. Humans! Wow! I'd never seen one before, only heard of them from family. Apparently they travelled the world looking for journey partners who went with them. Anyone chosen would increase dramatically in strength, maybe even evolving as my father and mother had done, so joining with a human was considered a great honour.

"Cool!" I yapped, started forward only to be stopped once again by my dad, this time lifted clear off the ground by his sharp teeth.

Once I had ceased struggling and instead channelled my efforts to turning my head back to father, he dropped me carefully onto the ground again, not looking pleased.

"There are good humans and there are bad humans." He hissed, ruby eyes flicking from my face to the creatures and back. He almost looked nervous…. "Those with the shiny boomsticks… they're the bad sort."  
  
"Shiny… boomsticks?" I wondered quietly.  
  
My father nodded, gesturing with his nose to the nearest human. I looked closer and, sure enough, found a shining grey cylinder I assumed to be a boomstick attached to its back leg.  
  
"They're dangero-"  
  
Again I found myself cut off as father suddenly shoved me into the dirt, following suit himself by pressing his lean form to the earth.

"I Swear I heard something out there..." said the nearest human, its voice strange and slow.

A second one, with a curvier frame I recognised from the teachings of my aunt as female, wrinkled the strange protrusion that apparently took the place of a proper muzzle. She had very pale flesh that stood out in the darkness and her head fur was dark brown. "Of course you do," she droned, taking a step towards myself and my sire, who bare his teeth and shrunk back beside me, "there are bound to be plenty of Pokémon here. That's why we came, remember?"  
  
The others murmured their agreement… and started to follow the woman! Towards us!

My father's claw came like a Murkrow's talon into my side.  
  
"Run." He said simply, so simply, in fact, that for a second all I did was blink.  
"Didn't you hear me?!" he barked, "RUN!"  
  
With a squeal as a burst of flame licked the air right in front of my nose, I leapt up and scampered away to hide in a particularly dense patch of bushes. But of course I wasn't going to run away completely: crouching low I peered out between the leaves just as a shout went up from one of the humans.

"There! That Houndoom will do nicely!"  
  
Father let out a raging bellow, this eyes blazing as he dug in his claws and held his ground. One of the humans foolishly lunged at him, for what reason I don't know, but a bout of flamethrower and a warning howl sent him reeling backwards.  
  
"Fools!" the female screamed, "Use your own Pokémon, not yourselves!"  
  
Immediately afterwards a bolt of ruby light, even brighter than my father's flame, jolted through the air, pooling on the ground before building up into the shape of a massive armoured beast. The light quickly faded, leaving a huge grey monster in its place. With my night vision I could see that its skin was bumpy and grey like a huge slab of rock.  
  
"DON!" it roared, stamping huge feet into the ground and spinning a sharp-looking horn on its massive crested head.  
  
Father growled right back, his eyes not leaving this new foe's body, and suddenly jumped forwards, claws extended. The creature didn't manage to react in time and father slammed into its rocky hide, clawing and biting and flaming at anything he could get at. It roared in pain and anger, shaking itself so hard that dad was flung from its side and hurled into the ground with a yelp.

"Dad!" I cried stupidly, leaping out to help him, but the stronger Pokémon hauled himself to his feet and snarled menacingly at me.  
  
"Leave!" he ordered again, mere seconds before repeating the attack he'd tried before.  
  
This time colliding heavily with the beast's head, father laid one side of its face open despite its thick skin and belched out a huge mushroom of flame right into its eyes. It screamed, shaking like a mad thing, but father refused to let go, biting again and again.  
  
"Damnit!" one of the humans cried, "Someone help me out here!"  
  
"Fine, if you're completely incapable of taking care of the situation yourself!" the woman screeched, "Go, Feraligatr!"  
  
As yet another monster, this one with pale blue pebbly flesh and a massive maw, materialised to fight my sire I realised how dire the situation was. With a wail of defeat I spun around and fled yet again, the battle cries of my dad as he launched a faint attack on the new enemy roaring in my ears.  
  
"That Houndour he's getting away!" shouted yet another human.  
  
"Well then, stop him!" snapped the woman, "Feraligatr, bubble beam attack!  
  
I didn't hear the response, didn't _want_ to hear it, and ploughed on into the trees, hoping that the dense woods might help me to escape home.

I ran for what felt like a long time, until my sides were shaking and I could barely stand up, when a huge green insect with scythes for paws dropped out of the branches in front of me.  
  
"You really should just submit." he suggested, the thin, papery wings on its back fluttering restlessly, "That way you won't get hurt, I won't have to do extra work and master will be happy." he cocked his head and nodded, "A good deal, if I ever saw one myself."  
  
I backed up a few steps and growled in what I hoped was a threatening way but instead came out as a petrified squeak. The creature sighed, taking one step forward on his clawed feet, and brandished his blades.  
  
"Houndour… I should have guessed. You can't talk, can you?"  
  
"Of course I can!" I yelped indignantly, but apparently this bug of a Pokémon couldn't understand me.  
  
"How pathetic. I may as well hurry up before master gets here to take you off though…" he trailed off.  
  
"You're not taking me anywhere!" I cried, spitting a weak ember at my opponent.  
  
With a hiss the creature sidestepped the attack and lunged with terrifying speed, raking a deep gash across my nose. I cried out and fell back, my muzzle bleeding sluggishly, but the insect wasn't done yet. Raising his leg, he slammed it down at me furiously in an attempt to knock me out in one hit. At the last second though I rolled, coming to my feet just in time to lurch forwards and bury my canines deep in his flesh.  
  
"Damn you!" he hollered, slashing so hard that the blade crashed straight through one rib, imbedding itself in my side.  
  
With battle-honed indifference, the Pokémon tore his built-in weapon out and flung me back, ripping my teeth from his flesh. My body convulsed in the air, trying desperately to right myself, but to no avail: I crashed painfully into a tree. The world spun fuzzily around me as I slid to the base of the trunk, unable to so much as think of moving, yet alone do the deed. A trickle of purple blood sliding down his leg, the triumphant insect towered over me as a human crashed towards us.  
  
"Scyther!" he called out, "You got 'im?"  
  
"Of course, master Elliot." He replied with a tiny bow, stepping away from me as though his master was royalty. 

I whined pathetically, trying to bare my teeth and scare them off, but the Scyther held one scythe threateningly to my neck as his master opened the door to a thick-barred cage he was holding and set it on the earth with a thud. He had black head fur, I realised dimly as I was lifted roughly (and painfully, thanks to the wounds I'd sustained to my body) and shoved into the cage. The metal was… cold. As this "Elliot" lifted my cage into the air and started back the way we'd come, Scyther stalking alongside him without even the hint of a limp, I wondered vaguely if father had escaped… and hoped silently that whatever they were planning to do with me was not quite as bad as it seemed…

* * *

I hope that was satisfactory; I know it's short and seems to end fairly abruptly, but this was meant to be a three-paragraph entry to help a friend out with a 'Guess the Author' contest. Obviously, I broke the limit. ; My friend used my entry anyway though, so all was well. I have little else to say, aside from that I hope you enjoyed it! Obsidian


End file.
